Stand up to end Trump’s Postal Service attack

Congress must block President Donald Trump’s kneecapping of the U.S. Postal Service. Protecting the Postal Service and the public’s faith in it would be important in any year but is especially so this year, when more Americans than ever will want to vote by mail. Deliberately damaging the Postal Service’s capacity has the potential to affect the election by leaving some votes uncounted.

Diminishing the Postal Service’s ability to do its work also slows commerce at a time when more people than ever are shopping online and having the goods delivered to their homes during the coronavirus pandemic. It has the potential to slow delivery of Social Security checks and bill-paying to companies and individuals who need the money because the economy has been damaged by the pandemic.

And it could further damage public confidence in the election, already eroded by Trump’s constant, unfounded claims that voting by mail will lead to “the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history.”

That is patently ridiculous — unless Congress stands by as he wrecks the Postal Service.

States, including Ohio and Oregon, that already have used mail-in voting know that it works well and is not inherently vulnerable to fraud.

But Trump has been doing his best since he took office to undercut the post office. Now he has installed Louis Dejoy, one of his major donors, as postmaster general, and the new boss has instituted cost-cutting measures that will slow delivery. Of special concern is an edict that branch offices must avoid overtime, even if it means leaving some of the day’s mail undelivered until the next day.

This makes it possible that some voters won’t get their ballots in time to return them by election day. And ballots could be postmarked before the deadline but still not get to a local board of elections by election day.

And if some are dissuaded from voting absentee because of concern that the mail won’t go through, they could run the risk of contracting COVID-19 by voting in person in crowded polling places.

Some conservatives have long disparaged the Postal Service and called for it to be privatized. Supporters of the service charge that Trump’s and DeJoy’s changes are intended to damage it to the point that a private takeover is more justifiable.

While the service has a history of expensive labor costs and could benefit from some reform, its current financial bind was made worse by a 2006 requirement from Congress that it pre-fund decades worth of the expected medical costs of its future retirees — something no other federal agency does.

And no profit-maximizing private operator would, unless required by Congress, serve every doorstep in every corner of the U.S. regardless of how non-lucrative the market. That’s what the Postal Service does, and that’s why it is an essential government service that should not be left to a for-profit company.

The fact that this election may be dependent upon mail service makes protecting it infinitely more important.

Any vote waylaid or simply discouraged by Trump’s mismanagement of the Postal Service and badmouthing of mail-in voting is one too many.

We implore Republicans in Congress to intervene in the sabotage of the Postal Service. And those with positions on his campaign committee, including those in honorary roles, should consider how they hope to be viewed by history.

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